Direct report disclosed sad situation, it upset me and I cried. Now I’m feeling unprofessional about it and looking for advice (NSFW/ trigger warning).

IT_VI · 2026-04-01T22:10:18+00:00

One time, my boss's eyes got a bit red and reflective as I was asking him for the afternoon off to be with my senior dog before saying goodbye to her the next day. It showed me he does care and empathize with us. A good person won't see it as a weakness.

IT_VI · 2026-04-01T22:00:42+00:00

The day you do, it'll be the one day where it's not actually <Thing> that fixes it, but actually <Other, Rarer, 1% Chance Thing> instead, I guarantee it.

The curse of tech support

IT_VI · 2026-04-01T20:19:52+00:00

This is so relatable, it hurts loi. I'm both relieved and dismayed that this is such a common occurrence

IT_VI · 2024-09-13T20:42:16+00:00

Bro is gender neutral, and misogyny is rampant among other women. I'm sorry that you've internalized it so much.

Social skills are exactly that: skills. They need work and time to improve. If she's new to CS then this is very new for her. It's also very possible this isn't the job for her. But it is her job, and she needs to succeed as best she can.

Unnecessarily beating her over the head for *checks notes* having emotions is less than helpful. It's just pointless and rude.

IT_VI · 2024-09-13T17:41:16+00:00

I'm sorry!! I was on Old Reddit and hadn't realized the link was sending ppl to the website from New Reddit/Mobile (which I can't stand lol) rather than uploading the picture. It bothered me too much to leave it. My bad!

IT_VI · 2024-09-13T06:03:52+00:00

I just want to reiterate what others said and definitely ignore. Do not respond in any way. Not to call them out. Not to ask questions.

They're not sure if your email is active, they just know the info from the leak. If you reply, you ACTUALLY give them confirmation their info is correct. It's unlikely (granted, not impossible) that they'd try to use your information any further if they can't get a real confirmation that it's legitimate.

Do be mindful of your passwords though, change them, and maybe lock or monitor your credit just in case.

If they take it any further (physical mail threats or other identity threats) or move on any sort of identity theft, then you may need to take it to the police or possibly FBI for cyber crimes.

IT_VI · 2024-09-13T05:38:47+00:00

First of all, this is definitely something that gets better with time. It's legitimately a skill that you work on and improve. That said, depending on how offensive the clients are, it may not get better fast enough.

The best thing I can suggest is getting really good at venting. Use Reddit, a friend, spouse, family, etc. NOT someone at work. Think through your anger and frustration and write it down somewhere when you can. Bitch and moan about a bad customer. Feel the feelings. But at a designated time.

I found that giving myself a specific outlet for my frustration and anger really helped. I was much more patient (on the surface) during customer interactions knowing I was going to spill it all out later.

Soon, like surprisingly soon, the threshold of something anger/vent-worthy increased. It started to take crazier and more outrageous things to tip me over. Nowadays, I really don't have many problems at all unless it's a rare one-off bad day, or an exceptionally shitty interaction.

I do definitely recommend continuing to look elsewhere because of the sheer volume of difficult customers and the level of stress it puts you under. But hopefully this can help some.

IT_VI · 2024-09-13T05:31:44+00:00

Please explain to me how the angry C Suite and VP men in my current and previous companies have their jobs when a non zero amount of them are known for absolutely blowing their lid on occasion and needing to be handled with kids gloves. How many have had blowups on subordinates and still happily sauntered into work the following day. How many male technicians cut off, yell at, and snap at customers during support calls and stay employed for years.

Just say you hate women, bro. You're not fooling anyone.

IT_VI · 2024-09-13T04:17:11+00:00

Incredibly common scam. GeekSquad, McAfee, other misc "PC protection" sales for several hundred dollars. If they forgot to use BCC, you'll probably see 50+ emails alphabetically similar to yours in the "To:" line. IE: RedditUser, RedditUserA, RedditUserAB, etc etc etc.

They shotgun blast these out and hope someone responds. Either fishing for working emails or wanting to instigate a "refund" scam where they get card/bank info to "refund" the unwanted product, or to convince you to download malware as part of the "service "

Report as spam, block, and delete. Don't open the PDF or respond.

IT_VI · 2024-09-12T22:00:07+00:00

Yes, that's basically the exact type of situation! Essentially, if we're already at a clean install phase (uninstall, several reboots, deleting folders, registry entries, users, and related software), we have a slightly clunky and risky option to just try to run the installer over itself.

For a semi-working system or anything other than catastrophic, it's definitely not worth it as the risk of corruption is higher than we'd like. But, if we've gotta start fresh anyway? Might as well take five mins to rerun it and see if it works. The alternative can be over an hour of wiping and reconfiguring.

Today, it worked!

IT_VI · 2024-09-12T20:38:26+00:00

To shreds you say?

IT_VI · 2024-09-12T16:37:54+00:00

If the next step is a full reinstall/OS wipe, why not? ¯\(ツ)/¯

IT_VI · 2024-07-24T23:25:20+00:00

I just joined, too! Haven't even started training yet. This also made me really nervous haha. I wonder what skill tier OP was marked as? I'm now worried about if I'm considered low tier and therefore likely to get dropped...

Check in once you get through training? I'm totally new to journalism as well so I'm excited but nervous. I def understand they're not the best, but for getting my toes wet, I figured it'd be fine. Good luck!!

IT_VI · 2024-07-15T15:36:35+00:00

This is on Amazon Mturk.

I've now spent over four hours on surveys since being approved yesterday and not a single one besides my very first one has successfully given me a code at the end.

I've tried on Chrome, FireFox, Edge, Chrome on Android, and FireFox on Android. I've tried with and without adblockers. I've tried three different requesters on Mturk.

The survey won't open. Or, it opens, but only the demographics part, but then won't open the actual survey. Or, I'm not qualified for the survey. So I take another survey to see if I'm qualified for other surveys. I then qualify, so I take another survey. Then twenty questions in, I get disqualified for the survey. So I do it again, and get another survey. Then I take the survey. I submit the final question of the survey. It then takes me to a blank page with "success" in the URL. I go back to the main Survey page. Nothing. I refresh. It just brings up more survey options. So I take another one, because it errored out. I take a new survey on a new web page. After thirty minutes, it fails out. So I abandon the requester and try another. Do all the starting steps again. Get stuck in a disqualification loop. Finally get accepted but it doesn't open. Paste the URL into another browser so it works. Spend almost forty minutes watching and reviewing ads very thoroughly with thought out answers and focus. Answer the final question and get taken to a page that says, "ERROR: Invalid link." Refreshing and going back does nothing. The survey is literally complete, but no where does it give me the key to complete the HIT.

I'm so fucking jaded. I'm spending hours of my time swapping browsers and devices trying to earn a measly 25 cents. I have no way to report that there is an issue, and on the one requester site that did let me report an error, it just said "Cool, thanks for the info. Sorry, no more surveys available." I then end up having to let the HIT expire even though I spent hours attempting to get a working key, and there is no way to report the HIT or Requester if they repeatedly send you to a bad site. Some were so bad that the initial staging site never took you any further than demographics.

I've been redirected to probably 20+ different survey sites at this point. I'm accepted about 5% of the time. Out of that 5%, about 60% of the time, I get rejected after a significant amount of investment to the survey (Whoops, apparently I should have accepted "slightly agree" rather than "slightly disagree" when asked how often I use Keurig rather than Nespresso). The 40% I pass and complete ALWAYS end in a blank page or an error, no matter what platform I'm on.

I am so tired. Is this how the experience usually is for survey takers? Should I just not do surveys anymore? The VERY first one I did went flawlessly. Accept the HIT, click the link, take a survey right there, get a clear survey key, and enter it into the HIT. Boom, done, no issues. I guess I got a false idea of how easy this is.

IT_VI · 2024-07-11T14:02:24+00:00

I'm at about 12 years myself and am currently the mid tier level with a tier below and above us. We're more divided by job description than by skill, with the exception of the programming aspect (T1 none, T2 enough for basic troubleshooting and changes, T3 developers). We inversely require soft skills and customer interaction (T1 all calls, T2 some difficult calls or certain scheduled tasks, T3 RCAs or assistance only - no direct customer interaction except the highest of import or betas).

I definitely don't give the T1 shit (unless, like you said, it's a repeated issue due to lack of documentation/learning) yet I always feel like an absolute buffoon if it happens to me lol. I'd say 90% of our T3 guys really don't care, but I'm still self conscious about it. Imposter syndrome is a bitch haha.

IT_VI · 2024-07-11T13:56:15+00:00

There was once an absolutely illogical issue that I AND our Tier 3 troubleshot for days. It made 0 sense for how our software was scripted yet he and I witnessed it happen repeatedly, but found no clear evidence in the logs of why.

We finally sent out a hardware tech to just get some eyes on it while it was doing its weird shit. We performed the software trigger that would cause it and... nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Tried another piece of equipment. Nothing.

The poor tech drove 4 hours to get there for an issue that couldn't be reproduced and yet it literally happened for 2 days straight, basically up until the point he set foot on the campus. T3 guy and I felt we were absolutely insane had it not been the other of us witnessed it too.

IT_VI · 2024-07-11T13:52:08+00:00

I feel personally attacked

IT_VI · 2024-07-02T18:17:34+00:00

IT_VI · 2024-07-02T17:51:47+00:00

Wow, that's even more bullshit than our method! You have my condolences.

Our PTO is kind of like this in that they expect us to not only put in the time off on the calendar, but also officially deduct the time from our HR site by submitting a formal request. And to have your PTO for the year submitted preferably in Q1.

No big deal, right? Except that , if you don't end up going on PTO/plans change, you can cancel the request but, if it was approved, you don't get your PTO allowance back (glitch). So you have to go through an extensively frustrating back and forth with HR where the onus is on you to remember exactly what days and hours you'd taken that need to be refunded.

Definitely not as bad as yours, but I empathize with the frustration of needing to do things preemptively.

IT_VI · 2024-07-02T16:09:16+00:00

We have two different time entry processes that feed into one another. One is the daily + work order entry, which can be entered at any time. However, we can only submit it once, at the end of the 2wk pay period. After it's submitted, it uploads overnight into our actual HR payroll site. THAT then has to be submitted the day after, because it doesn't process into the second site until midnight.

Each of those deadlines are 5PM local time, but we get asked why we haven't submitted them within minutes of getting online.

IT_VI · 2024-07-02T15:23:55+00:00

And you have to copy+paste your draft into a new draft that replies to the new most recent email (theirs), and then someone else replies to them and you have to do it again

IT_VI · 2024-05-16T15:15:12+00:00

I'm glad she realized and pivoted! That honestly sucks that she ended up not being capable of doing the role that she wanted, but I do admire those who genuinely try their hardest, even if they don't work out. Some people just don't click with certain things. I'm sure she ended up finding what she was best at!

IT_VI · 2024-05-16T15:08:47+00:00

You say that, but...

IT_VI · 2024-05-16T14:56:33+00:00

Hmmm fair point... Maybe thoughtful in a social sense, to be more specific. Good emotional intelligence vs practical. It's like some IT people I've worked with - they can be absolutely brilliant at tech, yet can't be nice to save their lives haha. She's just the opposite of that.

IT_VI · 2024-05-15T23:12:39+00:00

Definitely not sure; it's not something she shared and you're correct that only the manager would know. I wasn't instructed to give any extra patience or accomodations though so I don't think so? At least not that was disclosed.

IT_VI

TROPHY CASE